Everyone Has Secrets14
by cbk56-1999
Summary: Part Taylor's problem is revealed and so is Eric's


After dinner when Shelby was the only one in the dorm Taylor decided to tell her part of the story. She walked into the dorm and sat down next to Shelby who was reading her book. Shelby looked up, startled to see that someone else had walked into the room but put her book down when she realized who it was. Taylor gave her a long look and seemed to study her before starting. She took a deep breath before she began. "I usually have to know someone before I can tell them my problems. I have to be able to relate to them somehow. I have to know what they went through before I tell them what I went through. But you...your different. You've been a good friend to me and I think you deserve to know what has happened to me." Taylor took a deep breath, "I'm going to show you what happened to me first then I'll tell you." She said then she stood up and lifted the back of her shirt up. Shelby gasped at what she saw. "Oh my god! Taylor, What happened to you!" Taylor sat back down next to her and took a sharp breath this time to stop the tears from falling. My mom, the one who's dead, used to whip me with and extension cord." Taylor started to cry. "One time..." She said trying to get the word out through her sobs, "she heard on the news that a bunch of boys wiped another kid with an electric cord and she decided to do that same thing to me except with a plug instead." Shelby was crying along with her too. "I can't believe someone would do something like that." Shelby said through her tears. When they both settled down Shelby asked, "How many times did she do it to you?" "Whenever she was mad at me and she would do that about every other time which was really just every other night since I was about nine." Taylor answered hiccupping every once in a while. "Oh my god." Shelby said quietly and hugged the girl tightly.   
  
A few minutes later Sophie walked in to the two girls hugging and crying. She ran over to them. "Girls what's wrong?" "Nothing!" Taylor said defensively and walked out of the room. Sophie ran after her. Taylor, please tell me what's wrong, I can't help you unless you tell me." "DON"T YOU UNDERSTAND!!!" Taylor yelled turning around to face her. "I DON'T WANT YOUR HELP! IF I DID I WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU A LONG TIME AGO!!" She yelled and stormed off. Sophie didn't know what to do. She was frustrated over the fact that Taylor only talked to Peter but knew it was good that she was talking to someone. Peter suddenly walked up and put his hands on her shoulders. "Shelby said that Taylor had stormed off when she came to group. I decided to check and see how you were doing." Sophie turned around and looked at him. "I need help Peter. She won't talk to me all she does is yell at me whenever I try to talk to her. What do you do that makes her open up to you?" Peter sighed "she doesn't open up to me she talks to me and maybe that's a step but the only reason I found out about the scars was because I was walking around campus and she was there and in some sort of a daze. So I made her show me what was wrong with her back but like I said, she never told me how it happened. "Are you going to talk to her or let her go?" Sophie asked tuning her head to face him again. "I'm just going to try to get her inside and try to get her to go to group. Why don't you go back to the lodge, start group if I'm not back with her in five minutes." Sophie nodded and they both walked their separate ways.   
  
Peter found her by the basketball court she was taking shots. Peter walked over and grabbed the rebound of a shot Taylor had just taken. Peter had an idea and decided to forget about group. "Would you like to play a game?" Peter asked smiling cheerfully. Taylor gave an amused smile and looked very sure of herself. "You actually think you can beat me? You may have height but that doesn't really matter with me." Peter smiled. "I'll go easy on you." Taylor smiled back and checked the ball to him. As they started to play Peter began to make conversation. "So how do you like the Evans?" "Their nice." She said. "Better than my mom ever was." She mumbled. But Peter heard what she said and asked "How so?" Taylor seemed to be incredibly surprised by that question because she thought that he hadn't heard her. "Peter I know that you've probably figured it out by now!" She said frustrated as she made a shot. When she saw the look on Peter's face she just decided to say it. "MY MOTHER IS THE ONE WHO DID THAT STUFF TO MY BACK!!!" She yelled "AND THIS TOO!" She yelled again as she lifted up the sleeve of her shirt to show when the scar marks from where she was cut. Peter wasn't that surprised that her mother made the scars on her back but when she told him that her mother was the one who cut her he was completely surprised. Then it dawned on him that that was why she had the scars and why she was so scared of knives and it also explained all of his and Sophie's questions about why she would cut herself. Taylor made one last shot then started to walk away. She didn't want to cry in front of someone again. She'd already cried over ten times in the last few days. Peter ran up to her a minute later and put his arm around her shoulder. Taylor stopped walking and then buried her head into his chest and started crying. After a little while Peter started to lead her into his office and had her sit down on the couch and he sat next to her. "Wanna talk about it?" He asked a few minutes later. Taylor shook her head "no" but didn't move. "Taylor I'm going to move that hike back to another day ok?" Taylor nodded her head "yes and still didn't say anything. After a few minutes she asked if she could leave and peter said she could.   
  
  
THE NEXT MORNING  
  
  
Eric walked over to Peter's office and knocked on the door. He walked in when he heard Peter shout "COME IN" Peter looked up from his paper work when Eric walked in and stood up. "Sit down." He said as he gestured for Eric to sit in the chair across from his desk. Eric took a deep breath and began. "Peter, about four days ago you asked me if I knew why I was here. But I just figured out that really I should be asking you if you know why I'm here." Peter suddenly looked incredibly interested. He had no idea where this conversation was going. "That day I hinted that my dad was the reason why I was here. Right?" Peter nodded his head and indicated for him to go on. "Well there is a reason for that. The day before my dad killed himself..." Eric paused tears forming in his eyes and getting very upset not really wanting to go on but knowing he had to since he got this far. "The day before my dad killed himself he told me that I wasn't his kid and that he never loved me." He started crying but kept going, "He said that when my mom was about 19 she lived in New York and ended up getting drunk and having sex with another 19 year old who was also drunk. The reason I beat up that kid was because at the time I was thinking about the day my father told me all that and I beat the crap out of the first person who talked to me. Which just happened to be that kid." Eric said still crying.   
  
Then all of a sudden he stopped crying and just looked at peter very seriously. "Here's the catch Peter, my dad said that my mom never told the man her whole name but he told her his and do you want to know what that name was?" Peter nodded his head still not sure what this had to do with anything. Eric took a deep breath then said "Peter Scarbrow" Peter was just taken back he was surprised. Then he remembered the night when he was 19 and when he had sex with a lady named Jessica. He grabbed Eric's file and began searching in it for his parent's name then he got to it, MOTHERS NAME: Jessica Brister. It felt like a slap in the face to Peter 'How could I have not caught that sooner?' He thought to himself. Then he thought about it for a couple more seconds and he realized that he was happy he actually had a son! Peter smiled to himself then realized that Eric was still in the room. He looked at him and realized how much Eric really looked like him. One of the only major differences in the two was the fact that Peter had brown hair and Eric had blonde. Then he noticed that Eric was smiling too. He walked over to him and gave him a hug. "Eric why don't you go back to class I have some stuff to work out." Eric nodded and the two walked out the door. Peter needed to find Sophie.   
  
He found her reading in the lodge because all of the kids were at class she had free time right now. "Sophie! I need to talk to you!" Peter pulled her out of the lodge and into his office. "Sophie I was just talking to Eric he told me something and I'm not really sure of what your reaction is going to be. Ya see, when I was 19 I got drunk and had sex with this girl. Sophie nodded a little angry but not really surprised because she knew that he had done that before that got together. And Eric just told me that he's my son. He told me the story that he heard from his "dad" and then when he was finished it I remembered that the girls name was Jessica and his mom's name is Jessica plus the picture I have of her in his records looks exactly like the girl."  
  
Peter looked to see Sophie's expression and saw how surprised she was. "Are you mad?" "No I'm not mad I knew that you did that stuff I'm just surprised that your kid ended up in the same place that you work at." "You're not mad at all?" He asked still a little skeptical. "No, Peter I'm not mad." "Ok good cause I have an idea. We can get custody of Eric now because...well because he's my son. But the reason people never adopted his brother's and sister's was because they didn't want to adopt 5 kids let alone having one of them be a delinquent kid. So why don't we adopt them all?" Sophie smiled. She walked up to him and hugged him the she looked him in he eyes and asked, "You're sure you want to do this?" Peter nodded.   
  
After hours of talking on the phone with the adoption agency Peter had to go find Sophie. He found her in the lodge helping Ethan with his homework. When she was finished he walked over to her and pulled her aside. "Sophie, the adoption agency said that they'll think about it but in order for them to even consider it we will need to take all the kids in as foster children. Apparently I didn't really have to prove that I was Eric's father because it was on his birth certificate. But Eric will have to stay at horizon even if I took him in as my son because he came here because the judge ordered him to not because his foster parents sent him here." Sophie hugged Peter. "I can't believe it were going to be parents!" Peter pulled away and grew a serious look. "Sophie I need to talk to you about Taylor. You were on the night shift last night so I wasn't able to talk to you." They both walked into his office and Peter told her what Taylor had told him. Once he finished the story he heard a knock at the door. Sophie went over to get it. She found Taylor on the ground, her knees pulled up to her chest, shaking and crying. Sophie knelt down next to her and pulled her into a small hug. "What did I do to make her do that stuff to me?" Taylor asked in a whisper. "You didn't do anything. It's not your fault at all." "If I didn't do anything then why would she do that to me? What did she just do it for fun or something?" Sophie hugged her again. "Taylor, what ever your mom did to you was not your fault. Even if you had done something wrong you shouldn't of had to go through that much pain. No one should go through pain like that no matter what they've done wrong." Taylor started crying harder then she asked, "Do you even know what happened to me or do you just know that I have scars." "I don't know how you got the scars but I know that what ever you went through to get them must of hurt a lot." Taylor nodded and decided to tell her what happened to her. "My mom would whip me with and extension cord." Sophie was stunned she knew it had to be something terrible but to actually hear what it was. That was just horrifying. Peter was standing in the doorway and heard everything he was just as horrified. Eventually Sophie coaxed Taylor to go into the office to sit down. Sophie and Peter were in his office talking to Taylor for over an hour trying to convince her that everything her mother ever did to her was not her fault. Eventually she got tiered of arguing with them and just walked out of the office.   
  
"Sophie I think there's more to her story than she's telling. She told us her problem but with most of the kids they're relieved when they finally get it all out. With Taylor it just seemed to weigh her down more." Sophie nodded in agreement. "I know what you mean, I noticed that too." 


End file.
